When in Rome
by ChronicallyinFlaming
Summary: Liara finds herself in a "when in Rome..." situation in Illium, needing to hire mercs and threatening nonpaying customers, and thus also ends up getting an indentured servant. Non-specific Shepard.


**The Prompt: Indentured servitude in Illium**

_Liara finds herself in a "when in Rome..." situation in Illium, needing to hire mercs and threatening nonpaying customers, and thus also ends up getting an indentured servant (preferably some other race than humans, but I'm not too picky)._

_or_

_A young turian stranded on Illium hears that one advertisement for indentured servitude (IndenturTech, I think) and applies, to be "hired" by an asari._

_Can be a gen!fill or a sexy one._

__**The Fill:  
**

* * *

(**A/N: **the beginning of this inspired by Breaking Bad's episode: Peekaboo. You're welcome for the mental picture)

To enter one's own self, it is necessary to go armed to the teeth.

-Paul Valery

* * *

She learned rather quickly that there was more to simply threatening when someone decided they would rather not pay her for her services. Would rather run and flee the entire system, or would instead stay in their apartment and simply shut the door in her face. Change their omni-tool address numbers. Simply ignore her request, sometimes while also laughing.

For too long perhaps had she depended on Shepard's magnetism and friendly threatening to get things accomplished. Now she was on her own, just as when she'd left her mother's estate for the first time, afraid and awkward, hardly able to do her own laundry at the University. Deciding to stay inside to study as other asari went out to drink and party and socialize.

Yet as fun as kicking someone's door down, waving a pistol in the person's face and demanding to know where her money was, Liara knew she had to take a different route.

For starters, sometimes the people inside had weapons, and the archeologist would prefer not to die by such misadventure. Sometimes, those dark moments might overtake her and wish she'd died alongside Shepard after the Commander had suffocated in that black vacuum, but there was too much hard-headed pride in her to simply accept such defeat.

Pride, that was sometimes the only thing she had, as the other children commented on her parentage, as asari whispered rumors about the 'stuck-up daughter of a famous Matriarch' the University decided to forgo her contract, as she finally left Benezia's reach and took to ignoring her messages, as she struggled to have her findings taken seriously. As she lost the only thing that mattered to her anymore, handed that person off, and struggled to find a purpose after finding her life in shreds again.

Ego and hubris that made her practice before a mirror, that first time. Practicing the words and trying to look frightening. It didn't work. No matter what expression she made, she hadn't her mother's full glare. Perhaps when she hit the matron stage, something could be done, but now her furious expressions were more akin to petulance, her glares at thoughtless as a child's. The facial markings beneath her eyes didn't help, as her time on the Normandy had shown. The humans had pointed them out, smiling fondly, 'they look like our race's freckles.' She hadn't minded at the time, enjoying the Commander's grin too much.

Only her long unblinking stares had any ire to them. But even they didn't diminish the round eyes and face. Her button nose. She wondered for the nine-hundredth time whom her father was, and what she looked like.

Steeling her courage as she waited outside the door, in another hallway to another apartment, learning the difference between confronting someone over the extranet and in person. Feeling the pistol pressing into her spine, almost pleasantly hitting the nerves there in a disturbing way. Repeating her threats to herself, as she rubbed her hands together and knocked for the hundredth time. "Do not test me. I will not leave anything for your family to even bury."

To get inside, and nearly have her head blown off, a biotic shield saving her as she panicked.

Also, the people's homes ranged from gigantic lofts that never seemed to end, to depressing areas of negligence. Sometimes with children there, staring at her from atop stairs or on couches, small faces accusing as the parents fought each other or yelled at Liara or tried to plead and bargain. Once she'd even been forced to babysit one child as she waited for its parents to return, its eyes reminiscent of the Commanders, and stirring up guilt.

Couples who seemed to hate each other, arguing as the asari tried to break it up. Couples who defended one another. Couples that offered their spouses in exchange for a lowered interest rate.

Here on Illium, there were always those willing to sell themselves, and others.

And sometimes, they would simply run out the backdoor or through a window, and Liara hated having to chase after someone. The melodrama of it annoyed her, and every time she imagined Shepard chasing the culprit down, dodging crates and slipping over fences, athletic and beautiful. Recalling that, as she simply used her biotics to throw the runner into the air.

After having escaped from a pack of varren, the credit chip in her hand suddenly looking very meaningless, Liara knew it was time to finally look into getting some help. Not acolytes, not anyone that would learn too much, but simple muscle. People that knew restraint, that would keep a level head, rather than finally using their pistol as a blunt weapon, losing sanity in a dumb red rush that led to kicking wildly, bashing heads, including her own. Biotics forgotten, as she took her anger out on some poor fool. She hadn't killed anyone, but hurting someone that badly only served as a harsh lesson to others that she no longer wanted to take such an active role in.

It wasn't helping anyone, ultimately.

And she could imagine her friends' expressions if they found her like this—only Wrex would be amused. The others appalled, taken aback by the changes in her. And Shepard, Shepard would be…

It didn't matter.

She was losing whatever she'd been before settling in Illium, her callouses softening, no longer dreaming of finding a find that would gain her respect amongst the other scholars. No longer thought about publishing, hardly even looked on the extranet about such. When it came to protheans, even as she gathered various artifacts. No longer regretted losing her professorship. Lost the soft pity and mercy as she watched the worst of sentient life crawling before her, wanting to give her their children in exchange for payment of their debt.

Liara applied antiseptic to the new wounds, and looked discreetly into employing mercenaries.

Her squeamishness towards hiring employees soon would leave, surely. There was no reason to dirty her hands with every detail of this operation. Already she was sacrificing enough of herself even being here on Illium and starting her business, if it could be called that.

These things had to be overcome, Liara reminded herself, sliding further down into the tub as she literally needed to wash herself clean after the last job she'd done. Sacrifice, and patience. Pause for self-reflection only when you can spare the time. Do not hesitate. Be as sure and strong as Shepard.

Who would have laughed to see her there, in this tub with its bubbles she'd bought on a whim. Sitting there, the asari could imagine the human spectre taking a handful of those bubbles, perhaps brushing past a blue knee or thigh in doing so, to blow them into her face to annoy and cheer her up. Liara could see that grin and those eyes, the tilt of that head, even the gleam of armor that wasn't there made her twitch in this bathroom. Alone.

Lost, but for the hand between her legs, remembering that that smile, the length of fingers and the line of callouses not unlike her own. The mouth curled up at the corners, a mouth she knew better than her own. The spirit she'd touched, had joined with if only so briefly, the linger of prothean on Shepard's mind and past even those visions of that beacon, those memories that didn't belong to the ancient race and not to Liara. Blood in the grass, dying trees under a yellow sun, a green-eyed smile. The smell of stringing gunfire and the coil of legs beneath her, to run or attack, fear that she hadn't realized that the great Shepard was even capable of beneath the calmness.

A shared intimacy that not even Shepard had been aware of, and Liara couldn't even say anything to the Commander, to anyone.

Recalling dirt of a planet she'd never been to, as she lay in a tub of water on this world that held only one generation of asari, fresh and new and already diseased. Water from which her own people had sprung from and had such affinity for, and thinking of grass; hadn't humans evolved from primates, lowering themselves to the earth and losing tails. The span between their species that Liara might have cared about before.

Now she could appreciate the differences. In the reflections they'd passed by, her and another crew member lagging behind Shepard, they must have looked mismatched. Someone who was capable of being dispassionate comparisons.

Perfection. Found with sharper teeth and with hair rather than cranial crests.

Alone, on this strange world that was not her own not matter how she tightened her fist around it. Breathing in air, and feeling sick. How many times had she thought of Shepard's body, running a finger against that bundle of nerves as she'd so rarely done before, in love and giddy with freckles that were not her own.

Being on the Normandy had allowed her to become this person she was now. Still nervous, still too curious for her own good, still slow to catch jokes, but she was learning. About the galaxy beyond the protheans. About herself and what drove her, what she wanted, about what she wanted. A lover, to lap at her, to slide fingers into her, to watch her, to pull her out of the tub, not caring about splashing water everywhere. Fucking her, until she forgot where she was, and everything that had happened.

_I am on Illium, touching myself, and I'm in love with a dead human. _

_Still in love._

_Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will hire help. _

_Shepard will come back. _

_This will end soon enough._

Her orgasm was not entirely joyless this time, not as grim as usual, and that helped a little.

* * *

The mercenaries she found were as wizened and experienced where she was not. Reasonably loyal. Not hot-headed, as could be guessed from their age alone. Meeting her in an abandoned shop, anything valuable already taken. Very clearly, hardly even engaging her overactive imagination, Liara could picture blood fanning the walls in streams of all different colors.

Batarians, probably ex-Blue Suns. With their own facial markings, missing an eye or two, scars ranging from delicate as something done with a scalpel, to what looked like a grenade thrown just far enough to the right to have not killed him. Krogans, all reminding her of Wrex, but lacking in everything that made her old crew member become a valuable friend. A salarian missing one eye and with a comforting, unexpectedly voice full of sand and glass. An uneasy peace sat between all of them.

"I need the best."

Dark green eyes that had seen who-knows-how –much. "You're looking at it."

No one was murdered that day, and she thought that was a good start for the start of their professional relationship.

Only she was still lacking a proper assistant. Not someone to necessarily take note and make appointments, but who was capable of going undercover and helping bribe officials, who would watch other agents, someone who would also be willing to dirty themselves alongside Liara.

Her own spectre.

After those mercenaries decided to not attempt to murder him when meeting them again after a successful mission, her with the krogan, the salarian and the elected head of the batarians.

Sliding a card across the table. "The credits."

As she did the same to the three of them. "Your pay."

A brief pause, "Right. If you don't mind me asking, why are we meeting at a shopping mall?"

By this time, she'd already wizened up enough to meet them in a relatively public place, where they were less likely to attempt murdering each other or finding a fresh body nearby.

"I didn't hire you to ask questions from _me_. I'll contact you for the next mission."

Then she left, hoping she looked calm and somewhat mysterious. Wishing she could do more over the omni-pad and terminals, because typing threats was easier than saying them. Trying not to look at the other people here, and not keep her head down, seeing other asari, sometimes with others, sometimes excluding the air of wanting to meet someone, or having a partner at home. Joy and satisfaction so apparent.

While she felt that ever widening gap between her and the others, one that she'd felt since she was small and spending her spare time in her room, reading. There were people here with secrets and their own lies and doubts and fears, Liara knew. She was coming to better understand what could hide underneath smiles.

She slipped through a side door, after spending way too long passing by clothing stores, and imagining Shepard in certain outfits. Then imagining the Commander propped up by Cerberus like one of the mannequins. Which is what followed her, rather than the spectre smiling, dressed in a certain pair of jeans, in only jeans that slid down passed lean hips while Liara watched, in clinging shirts and in certain things past a store that stupidly made her _blush_ like she was thirty again. The Commander, unmoving and grey, lying on an autopsy table. A file open, with all the details of Shepard's life, from allergies to the condition of the body when it had been recovered: deceased.

Dead eyes, being opened, or had they been too badly damaged by capillaries bursting. Cheeks cracked from the cold, black in places, the energy and leaving only dead meat. Would there have been frost on that body, as they removed the dented armor, a piece of which she still had. Asphyxia, what he humans had called it, and it sounded almost asari in nature. How Shepard had grabbed, reaching upward, needing to breathe despite knowing that there was no possible way, no rescue. Another decision to save others. Would Cerberus have to clone parts, put in implants and cybernetic parts?

What would come back? Would it even be Shepard? Just a shell. The innerness, the personality, the soul, yes, all gone. Could that even come back? She could feel a horror reached up to choke her, without a feature but with a name and that name was_ dread_. Liara wasn't sure of what she entirely believed an afterlife might consist of, but if there was something past this life, past a tapestry of the galaxy and our places in it, would she be taking Shepard from that? What if there was something, something peaceful, and she was dragging the Commander back to this life to face more war and fear and loss. The galaxy needed Shepard, yes, but hadn't the spectre done enough? Peace, there might be peace wherever that soul might be.

Had she not been raised to appreciate time spent with friends, with partners if Shepard could even be called that? A part would live on, in Liara, but she wanted more than that. The whole thing, before her eyes and _with her_. Arrogance.

"_We don't have the luxury of time." Shepard had said, leaning away, always keeping a space between them._

Could anyone dead for so long really come back? There had been no life when she saw that shell holding the human's body. No spark. Everything that made the Commander a person, the person who had comforted her over her mother's death, that had tried to save so many, that was emptied out.

It was leaving there that she stumbled on an advertisement for IndenturTech, right outside the spaceport to help better lure recent arrivals.

A relief to see that sign, rather than Shepard bleeding black from ruined eyes.

Any problems with indentured servitude was rationalized away with an ease that Liara hated, hearing her mother in her voice as she told herself that nothing she did was remove the practice, that at least she would make sure anyone that worked under her would be well paid.

She remembered going to the store, with Shepard. Sans shopping lists. "Hey, this looks good, bet no one's allergic to it. What do you think?" So strange, to be around a human, still surprised by the Commander and the alien habits of Shepard's species, especially when finding herself racing shopping carts against the spectre inside the labyrinthine store. Crashing them and upsetting the employees as they tried to run off from their mess like scared children. Them forgetting why they'd even gone in, by the end. Only to be sent back to find the right ingredients.

How could that person be dead? How could that person that she had loved and laughed with and had followed to so many worlds be _gone_?

Dead, like her mother and possibly her father and so many more, soon enough. There was no light, her mother had claimed, and she imagined Shepard lost in cold darkness. Worse than drifting from that explosion, because there would be no end.

Arrogance, and fear and loneliness. That's what she fed off of now, as she planned a different type of shopping.

* * *

Everyone was very polite, when she finally made an appointment to buy an assistant. Glossy magazines and light wood in the waiting room, an interview with a pretty asari with white markings and gentle flirting. She was Liara T'soni, young scholar turned information broker, daughter of Matriarch Benezia, and a rising figure on Illium. People were becoming more and more eager to obey, or at least smile rather than simply stare at her.

Humans were disregarded out of hand, she later realized. There were only so many on this world, so she was able to flip through the profiles easily enough. Stopping when she saw eyes of a certain shade, hair almost matching that exact color. She would never have thought the shape of someone's nose could cause her an actual pang of hurt.

She needed someone that knew their way around a gun. He was young, and his face was reasonably anonymous. Dark-skinned, red markings that meant something she wasn't fully informed of. An ex-member of C-Sec, she was sure. Liara had to remind herself that this was not Garrus, was probably nothing like her turian friend that could be trusted.

When he arrived at her door to her office the following day, the turian was definitely as non-descript as his profile had promised. Quietly competent, as he watched her with green eyes, as unreadable as Garrus had been. Younger than she'd imagined, his voice higher than she would have thought.

They must have made quite a pair, Liara thought on some days, as they planned and watched Cerberus, moving from air conditioning to air conditioning as the hotter months finally came. A tad hapless, perhaps, the both of them, still trying to figure out how this planet worked and always avoiding signing anything the same way the humans had warned her about 'eating the eggs,' when first coming onto the Normandy.

When she somehow found her name finally listed on one of the gossip mag, it was brought to her by her unofficial turian assistant. From the way his mandibles moved, he was clearly finding this whole thing very amusing. There were many different reasons why she might be in one of these, but seeing her full name and title under 'Ten Most Eligible Maidens in Nos Astra' was not one she might have even suspected.

There were descriptions, and none of them exactly accurate. The pictures flattering and unrecognizable. It brought complicated memories of her time spent at Serrice, especially since he'd decided to hand her this datapad in the library.

Liara could only imagine her friends' reactions to this.

What her mother might have said.

"You seem to be quite popular, ma'am."

"For that, you can carry my books."

A streak of cheekiness less visible than his red paint. At least he didn't seem to question her, as she met him in places like the library, and the planetarium and the large aquarium that she finally gave into simple curiosity to see. Strange, to plan a murder of a wealthy asari matron with too many connections to the Eclipse and a beady eye on that latest information brokers, while looking as skald fish.

With the turian, who reminded her more and more of Tali than Garrus necessarily, Liara felt a little saner. They could have been friends, in another time.

When Liara went to bed, she dreamed of Shepard next to her. As though she had any right to a lover, especially the Commander. But she wanted, regardless of right or power or ability, to have Shepard here on her couch, and simply exist besides her on an overpriced coach, beautiful in dark armor that gleamed.

She wondered if she was anywhere near that Doctor Liara T'Soni, daughter to Matriarch Benezia T'soni, once teacher at Serrice. Now this person whose skin she inhabited was learning to look into people's eyes, and speak in vagueness rather than simply going on and on about too many details until the other person was left staring. How to stand straight, and keep her shoulder back. To keep her hands still and her left eye from twitching.

How to gain the upper hand. Remembering poker games to pass the time, sometimes while in the Mako, her losing every hand as Williams and Garrus laughed and raked in the credits from her and Shepard. 'We are not cheating; you guys are just really bad.' Back when her mother was only a possible traitor and still breathing, back when Kaidan had still been alive, and no matter how bad things got, they still could be okay thanks to Shepard.

When she'd first seen the Commander, Shepard had been wearing flawless white armor and Liara had thought it was all a hallucination. Something out of a story she'd read as a child or seen in a holovid. She wasn't so egotistical to think that the spectre had only been a dream, the time spent aboard the Normandy only a fantasy, but she did wish that it could be, now.

Sometimes, the asari thought that she should have seen Shepard's body, just to make sure of its state. To touch the Commander one last time. Blood and grey skin and all. If she had touched Shepard, then she might be able to remember the coldness of that body, and that would save her from this. Remind her of her own mortality, of why she did this, a reminder that yes, the Commander had not been a foolish young maiden's fantasy—at least, not entirely.

She finds that she can still laugh with her assistants, official and unofficial. At their teasing over her love life and lack thereof. Neither of them flinch over what she asks of them, neither hesitates to hack as they spy on their assigned targets.

Liara would also discover that the asari assistant is either luckier or a better agent under her employment. When she comes into the office, with the awaited information, she can smile over how easy this all is.

Though of course that ends when they find the turian's body in an old factory, burned, red markings scrape off and fringe clipped neatly. Gang killing, the small article dedicated to his murder proclaims, and there is only one mention of him. She read about it while having breakfast in a café by her office, thinking, _that will make things easier, even if it's terribly unfair_.

Finding out who exactly pulled the trigger had not been easy. But she had nothing if not time and resources for vendettas. Her group of mercenaries physically found both the assassin and the asari. Thankfully, both were gagged, to avoid the usual threats and warnings that no one there wanted to hear.

"Just them?"

The salarian, with the voice that had always taken her aback nodded. "Just them. For one turian."

Fire would have been fair. Torture.

She personally held the gun to their foreheads and shot them both twice in the head. For her friend and for herself. Because this isn't what Shepard would have done, and would have been shocked to find her killing two unarmed people. Because she knew what they would look like before the blood had even hit the wall, and how they'd look with the life draining out of them.

It was nothing to do so. Weight on the trigger and now there are burns on these empty faces that drip blood.

This is a beginning. Or at least a taste of the beginning to what she'd come here to do.

Her way of mourning.

The green gaze from the krogan was unsurprised, and Liara also enjoyed that.

* * *

In this apartment, this tomb for herself and her memories that she hoped to never pass onto another:

In this shower, glass and stone and water cleaning off whatever blood was already gone:

In this damp head:

This is where Liara truly resides.

Not the first person she'd killed, she thinks. As though that will bring relief. It had always been in self-defense, never anger righteous or not.

At least she'd been able to avenge someone.

Their deaths had a larger article than her friend's had.

The first death at her hands, because of what she'd done, here. When she looked in the mirror, seeing first what was hidden behind the walls, the credits and datapads for safekeeping and easy retrieval should she need to flee. Then her reflection, she saw there was no change. Her face was still round, the markings still the same, the blue of her eyes unremarkable. At least her left eye was not twitching.

Sometimes, she almost wished she could forget what Feron looked like.

Before her desk, with its stacks and empty bottles of water and half-filled coffee mugs. Liara wanted to write, to put something down about what she'd done, a confession. A memorial. But couldn't find anything to say.

It really hadn't been a

No messages from Cerberus. None from that Miranda agent.

In bed: hearing every dull sound of this apartment, the thrum of the environment controls that monitored this place, the terminal downstairs humming as it worked.

Excruciatingly aware of being alive, Liara lay there.

That final question that had to be asked: what if Shepard never comes back?

When she falls asleep, she dreams of the dead.


End file.
